Today, the world claims to have outgrown Christianity. And yet, it hasn’t stopped making moral demands. The question is, by whose authority?
One person calls abortion “healthcare.” Another calls it the murder of the innocent. One person condemns the death penalty as barbaric. Another argues that it is a just punishment for the most severe crimes.
Both sides appeal to justice. Both claim the moral high ground. But by what standard can either of their claims be judged?
As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”
When we call something unjust, we are doing more than expressing a personal dislike. We are claiming that something is objectively wrong, regardless of whether others approve of it or agree with it.
But if morality is merely a matter of opinion, on what grounds can we condemn another man’s actions as evil? By what authority is our opinion superior to his?
As such, to call something unjust is to assume that justice means something more than personal preference. Disagreement does not eliminate the need for an objective standard. It makes that standard indispensable.
Christianity identifies it in the character and law of God.
When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbours as ourselves, He was not replacing the Old Testament with a softer, “more Christian” morality. He was citing Leviticus 19:18. He was quoting Old Testament law.
Indeed, Christ said that loving God and loving our neighbour are the two commandments upon which all the Law and the Prophets depend (Matt. 22:37–40).
They are not substitutes for God’s commandments; they are their summary.
Paul is even more explicit. Prohibitions against adultery, murder, theft and covetousness are summed up in loving one’s neighbour, because “love does no wrong to a neighbour” (Rom. 13:8–10).
God’s law does not compete with or contradict love. It defines the conduct love requires.
If the unborn child is our neighbour, love cannot justify killing him. If murder is evil, justice can’t be reduced to our feelings about what we imagine is a fair punishment. Scripture gives civil authorities a real, though accountable, duty to punish wrongdoing (Gen. 9:6; Rom. 13:4).
Our age pretends it can discard God’s law while throwing about words like rights, justice, equality and compassion. But detached from an authority higher than man, these are mere labels that competing groups attach to their preferred policies.
But the question we must continually ask is, by whose standard? Who gets to decide what is just and unjust? Parliament? The courts? The majority? Whatever opinion happens to be ideologically fashionable at the moment?
The secular state prides itself on being “neutral.” It’s not. Every law permits some acts and forbids others. Every law embodies a moral judgement about good and evil.
Reject God’s authority, and religious authority does not disappear. Human opinion simply takes its place, and the only thing distinguishing one opinion from another is who has the power to impose his views on everyone else.
Western nations, having cast off their Christian moral inheritance, now drift like ships without rudders. And they’ve mistaken the direction of the current for moral progress. If you’ve read the book of Judges, you’ll be familiar with the pattern: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg. 21:25).
We don’t need a morality above God’s law. We need the humility to recognise that no such morality exists.
If God’s law commands love and reveals what love requires, every alternative appealed to will be less just, less righteous, and less loving.